Roses
by Lyo
Summary: Reflections in a graveyard.


Roses  
By Lyo  
Legals: X-men: Evolution doesn't belong to me. I think we all know that.

* * *

It was twilight when the woman entered the graveyard, shadows beginning to grow inky, and the wind beginning to chill. Her cape flapped around her body as she moved, pushing an empty wheelchair along with her. In the wheelchair were white roses. She stopped, looking back down the path she'd just come. No one was following. Not this time. 

She sighed. The ground beneath her feet felt cool, clean. She hated coming here. So many bad memories, so many tears held back. Still, she came. Her husband didn't like it. He avoided the place like a plague. Couldn't hold that against him. He'd been on the team three months when it started to fall apart.

The first death still played out in violent, bloody color in her mind as she stopped pushing the wheelchair, lifting the flowers. The first death that had started this whole cycle of revenge and death. How much longer would it last? She'd wanted so much. She'd believed that it could happen.

Her hands trembled as she pulled the weeds up from the first grave. E. Daniels "Spyke" 1986-2017. He'd made it the longest out of all the students, with the exception of her. He never went crazy or blind or anything. If he hadn't gone into the mansion after Xavier, after Christian.

She shook her head. Weeds. So many of them. She didn't understand why Ororo never came to tend the grave. She just kind of sat in her chair by the window and looked out of it, staring off. She'd been doing that since they told them that the mutants and humans were to be separated now. Evan's parents were dragged from the house, and Storm sat down. She just never seemed to get back up.

Satisfied with her impromptu gardening, she laid the first rose and moved onto the next grave. It was well cared for, even if the numbers had been scratched away. Some one sharpening their claws no doubt. C. Xavier. He'd died in the explosion with Evan. The mansion died that night too. She looked up to the hill, where the husk remained. A husk full of false hopes and dreams. The world of equality. What a load of shit.

Her eyes watered as she passed those graves and onto a large grey stone.

**Wagner**  
Kitty 1985-2006  
Kurt 1984-2012  
Christian 2005-2017

Mother, father, and child, all laid down to rest in the same damned place. Kitty died in a battle against Magneto. Kurt, miracle he managed after her death. He fell into drinking and all kinds of things, but he achieved his goal eventually. He took Magneto out, and it cost him his life.

She threw down the roses, standing for a moment. It got harder each day to look at them. To know that half of those stones were there because there wasn't enough body to bury. Empty plots of dirt to talk to. She sighed, looking at the next three graves. Lance, Todd, and Fred. They didn't deserve to die in some stupid suicide mission.

It was Mystique's mistake. She made them go to the mansion that night, right after Scott's death. Logan gutted Lance the moment he stepped on the grounds. She'd been there. She'd been the one to snap Todd's leg when he tried to kick Jean. Then she snapped his neck. She couldn't really place _how _Fred died. One moment, he'd been fine, standing over Lance's strewn body parts and Todd's vacant staring eyes. The next they'd fallen on him, killed him before he had a chance to scream.

She patted Lance's grave affectionately. She didn't mind him when she was part of that little group, and she wished he'd turned when she asked him to. Instead... She shifted, kneeling back at Scott's grave. 2002. He'd barely started his second term of college when Magneto stole his life away in a blind rage. Kitty'd found him, metal spikes strewn in and out of his body. So much blood, falling like a summer storm. The carpet was soggy with it.

Jean went after that. Her mind, then her body. She made herself sick, made herself crippled, and one day, she could walk again. She walked right out into the street, looking for Scott at three o'clock in the morning. The refrigeration truck never even saw her. Thought she was a deer.

She stood, looking over the graves. So many of her comrades had fallen. Polaris. Iceman. Angel. Jubilee. Emma. She couldn't even remember all their names anymore. Just the bloody, awful ways they'd died. One name was missing from the group. No Victor Creed. He'd been the one to start this mess. He never paid for it. Not once.

Her feet bypassed Mystique's grave, Destiny's grave, Magneto's. Money was short. Too short to pay for roses for them. The last grave on the line, the last tears to be shed.

Poor Pietro. The battle that day was the worst she could remember. All out. Everyone against everyone, battle to the death. Pietro had been trying to help stop it after Magneto had surrendered. Victor Creed wouldn't stop. He wanted blood, and he fell onto Scott, claws poised to rip out heart and lungs. Quicksilver saw this; knew this. Why did he jump on top of Scott, trying to talk to Victor? Why didn't he just look away like they all did?

The screams still haunted her dreams after all this time. She could still hear flesh torn from bone, Magneto's horrified voice as he told Sabertooth to stop, stop. In the end, they'd just had enough to bury his uniform. Xavier stopped Sabretooth before he could get to Scott.

After that, Scott changed. He wasn't part of the X-men. He couldn't take it. He wanted a normal life, a normal routine. Magneto hated him for living. He hated Xavier for not stopping Sabretooth when he had the chance. He killed Scott. A son for a son.

She stood slowly, her tears clinging to the rose before she let it fall. _Goodbye.

* * *

_Thistied in with my other, now-deletedfic, Curse of the Future. It has now been edited for grammar and spelling.

Please R/R


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